‘Unuh app’ helping to shape teens’ life skills
Published:Saturday | March 23, 2024 | 12:06 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
THE ‘UNUH app’, a mobile life skills application intended for youths from age 13-18 years, was launched on Thursday by the Civil Society Boost Initiative (CSBI) in collaboration with RISE Life Management Services.
Nicholas Buddal, a sixth-form student at St Anne’s Technical School, said that the app was something unique that genuinely assisted him in turning his life around and that he had been utilising it for nearly a year now.
He spoke with The Gleaner during the launch ceremony held alongside the opening ceremony for the CSBI Phase 3 at The Summit (formerly the Knutsford Court Hotel).
“The app is like a personal, mental development process. When I first got introduced to it, it helped me because I was a person who naturally didn’t care about nothing [in] life, but right now it helped me to develop emotionally and mentally so I start focus more, [and] I start give response and interact more with people,” the 18-year-old said.
Since using the app Buddal, who lives within proximity to the Tivoli Gardens community in Kingston, further stated that he has introduced his sisters and friends to the app and encourages most youths within the neighbourhood to utilise it.
The application consists of three modules, a 30-lesson development plan, and plenty of entertaining, interactive activities where after completion, a digital certificate is issued to the user.
Behaviour change
Elizabeth Terry, a consultant for RISE Life Management Services, states that the objective of the programme is to help students who might feel unmotivated, hopeless, powerless and without direction, while lacking the know-how on the ways to get their lives back on track.
The app, she said, is also equipped with tools from neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), positive psychology and positive intelligence which targets mind and behaviour change, “because everything starts with the mind”.
Also, during her remarks, Terry expressed how happy it made her to be able to teach young people about their “inner resources”, and ways to help them reach their full potential.
She stated that her mission through the development of the Unuh app was to help young people overcome the notion that they were unable to accomplish their goals in life and to help them get rid of “the baddas mindset”, which consisted of high levels of negativity carried within young people.
“It’s about helping to nurture the development of a kinder, more integrated society, where respect for all persons as well as our environment and culture is encouraged,” she said.
Additionally, she stated that the app also provides “a learning management system for teachers, guidance counsellors, our partners, parents, to access the risk profile of their students if they wish through either the adverse childhood experience tests or the strengths and difficulties tests. It also allows for student monitoring and verification of scores for the broader challenges and community project after each level to access how students are applying their knowledge to real life,” Terry explained.
The CSBI is RISE Life Management Services’ flagship product for building capacity and engagement with members of civil society in Jamaica. With funding from the European Union (EU), it was first implemented in 2016 and then again in 2019, which resulted in the training of 52 civil society organisations (CSOs) in CSO management strategies; the establishment of a CSO network known as the Civil Society Network of Jamaica (CSNJ) with a current membership of 27 organisations; offered sub-granting to eight CSOs to implement projects targeting their population and the development of a CSO capacity building manual.
The newly launched CSBI Phase 3 is a 30-month project funded by the EU, which is intended to build upon the successful implementation of the first and second phases of the project. Its overall objective is to enable Jamaican CSOs to engage as actors of governance and development; contribute more effectively to Vision 2030 and work towards gender equity.
A total of 25 agencies – 10 youth-led and 15 working towards gender equality – will benefit from all of the training programmes offered by the CSBI phase three. They will also gain access to a number of coaching and training options designed to help them run their agencies more effectively and impactful.